Accurate piloting of a vessel involves relatively constant effort to ascertain the position of the vessel with respect to objects visible to the navigator. One method of ascertaining the position of a vessel is to take bearings of various objects such as buoys, lighthouses, headlands and the like. Such bearings establish lines of position, and by plotting two or more bearings a fix can be secured. On larger vessels it is customary to employ a pelorus suitably mounted on a bridge wing. Ordinarily the steering compass is not located in a position making it easily available for the taking of bearings. There are on the market hand-bearing compasses adapted to be held in the hand of the navigator so that he can take bearings by pointing the compass toward an object and reading its bearing. However, hand-bearing compasses are extremely difficult to operate when the vessel is pitching or rolling in response to wave motion. The hand is a relatively unsteady platform, the result being that a hand-bearing compass is subject to a plurality of dynamic disturbances and is therefore generally incapable of indicating magnetic direction with reliability. Such a compass wanders relative to the eye and to the object whose bearing is desired.